Silverman: Stand-alone section merging into daily

COMPUTING

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, May 10, 2001

WHEN the Chronicle's Technology section launched on March 13, 1998, the fastest PC chip was just 333 megahertz, Netscape Communications was still a player in the browser game and high-speed home Net connections were just empty promises.

Back then, personal technology was still fairly exotic. Home computers weren't yet in half of U.S. homes; cell phones couldn't yet talk to the Web; and Napster creator Shawn Fanning hadn't yet learned to write code.

That's why the Chronicle created Technology. We felt people needed some kind of guide that would help them navigate these new, usually choppy waters. I always thought of this section as a kind of weekly user's manual for the digital lifestyle.

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But as is the case with almost all technologies, personal computers, the Internet, handheld devices and digital entertainment are becoming commonplace -- and that's as it should be.

The telephone caused quite a stir when it was first introduced, but today it's not even considered high-tech (though it really is, if you know how the modern telecommunications system works). Ditto for television, and today it's not only found in almost every home, but in almost every room in every home!

Blending in is sign of success

The sign of a successful technology is that it fades into the woodwork. "Gee whiz!" is replaced with "Oh, yeah ... that."

And while we're not quite at that stage with personal computers and the Internet, we're well on the way. PCs are now in 60 percent of U.S. homes; some studies show as many as 70 percent of those machines are linked to the Net.

The mainstreaming of computer techology was, in fact, the cover story on the first issue of this section (see www.chron.com/content/chronicle/tech/98/03/13/main.html). The fact that personal technology has become a part of the fabric of everyday life is one of the reasons this is the last stand-alone edition of Technology.

Starting Tuesday, we're going to make technology coverage part of the fabric of the Chronicle's daily business section. The content you find in this section each week will live on, and to present it to you, we're going back to our roots.

You see, the Chronicle's coverage of personal technology actually began in 1995 with a page in Sunday's Business section called Logging On. That later morphed into a four-page pullout, again in Sunday Business, dubbed @Chron.com, in 1996.

Schedule for technology news

Each page in Technology has a theme, and we'll put those individual pages into the Business section Tuesday through Saturday:

• Wednesday will include our help-oriented features, including Jay Lee's Help Line column, Tipsheet and Update.

• Thursday will feature our content for home users -- Cheryl Currid's Working@Home column and Anne Reeks' and Elise Gunst's At Home reviews of children's software, games and personal productivity programs.

• Finally, on Saturdays you'll be able to find this column on the front of the Business section, along with the cover story that graced the front of Technology.

Of course, if you still want to read all this in one sitting, just connect to our Web site, HoustonChronicle.com, and click on the Technology link. We're revamping the online edition to better reflect the changes in our technology coverage. We're also reorganizing the archives of many of our features to make it easier to find information you're after.

One of the best parts of working on Technology has been the overwhelmingly enthusiastic response from readers who felt the section helped them integrate computing into their day-to-day lives. That's the mission here, and it doesn't end with Technology's passing.